Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [86]
Why was Jett just standing there? And with that smug look on his face?
“Fine, we’ll do it your way,” Demascus said. “Where is it? Where is Murmur?”
He failed to find the healing potion. He let a finger rest on Leheren’s neck. No pulse, and she was already cooling. Oh, gods, she was dead.
Garel stepped forward and kicked at him, but he dodged. He straightened and backed away from the body, his sword at the ready. Tiny flickers of light danced on either side.
Garel sneered, and said, “Thanks for bringing her back.”
Lieutenant Leheren sat up. Her head rotated like a puppet’s until she found Garel. She’s alive! thought Demascus, and he allowed himself a smile. With her, they might just make it out of here!
Leheren’s hand shot out and clamped on Garel’s ankle. He cried out when she squeezed. Then she pulled the suddenly screaming genasi to her and took a huge bite out of his leg as if Garel were no more able to defend himself than a piece of fried chicken.
“What’s she doing?” came Chant’s unbelieving voice.
“I am hungry,” said a voice devoid of mirth, hope, and humanity. Demascus flinched. The voice had emerged from Leheren’s mouth. But it was the voice of something else entirely.
Her eyes, which earlier had seemed tired and bloodshot, had become orbs of blood-lit quicksilver. Her szuldar shone with the same metallic red light, as if her skin was moments away from splitting.
Demascus couldn’t make his mind work. Had Portalbreaker infected Leheren with some kind of demon sickness?
Leheren said, “Servitor, explain. What am I doing here?” Again her voice was a soulless, scratching parody of the lieutenant’s normal tone.
Garel screamed again, but she casually lifted him then brought his body down on the ground with a body-crunching thunk. Then Garel only grunted through broken teeth.
Jett said, “My lord Murmur.” The genasi’s fear had returned, but he continued speaking, “Your host wandered off when the cell we kept her in collapsed. We had been worried for your safety.”
Demascus said to the lieutenant, “What … who … You’re the cult leader? You’ve been lying this whole time?”
Leheren’s head moved with the same careful precision until she fixed her awful eyes on him. No, not her eyes. Its eyes. What lived behind the facade was no longer Leheren. It was Murmur.
Murmur blanched when it saw him. Its mouth opened in a parody of a scream, and it bawled like some kind of demonic infant. The sound entered his head and beat at his mind like a hammer. He dropped his sword and grabbed his forehead, trying to hold in his suddenly throbbing brain.
Murmur took the opportunity to bound away from him like an insect. It landed clumsily behind Jett, Garel in tow.
“It’s him,” grated Murmur.
Now what? Demascus felt like his brain was caught in burning, thought-deadening oil. He gritted his teeth, and yelled, “Chant! Riltana! Over here!”
But Chant and Riltana were fighting off a new wave of cultists.
Demascus bent, and retrieved his sword with one unsteady hand. The Veil fluttered and shone, while its shadow lengthened and wriggled like a live thing.
Murmur screamed, “The molting is at hand!” and slapped a hand on Garel’s forehead.
“What’re you doing?” said Jett, backing away.
Murmur said, “This one’s oath to the Elder Elemental Eye has come due!”
Then Garel and Murmur both screamed as every szuldar line on Leheren’s body split wide. Her skin sloughed off, revealing raw muscle, viscera, heart, lungs, and brain. Instead of blood, liquid crystal percolated up from between every crevice and fold of tissue, shining with abyssal red brilliance.
As the liquid crystal inundated Leheren’s organs and form, Garel’s body deflated. His scream dwindled to a choking whisper. His limbs crinkled and folded up on themselves, then disintegrated into so much dust. His last utterance was, “No, my soul …”
He was gone. As was Leheren.
The thing that had lived in Leheren remained. It had become a terror of rubbery black limbs veined